de Blasio Press Q&A: The Pothole Edition (Updated)

Today Mayor Bill de Blasio held a press conference in Maspeth to highlight the City’s efforts at pothole repair. The city’s roads have been battered by a high number of winter storms and temperature fluctuations, producing a bumper pothole crop. The mayor’s press conference, held at 69th Lane and 60th Avenue in Maspeth, featured the mayor and Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg joining a Department of Transportation road crew in filling a pothole.

Full Q&A:

On-topic questions for the mayor included the cost of the pothole repair program, the furlough of seasonal DoT workers, the average time between pothole complaints and repair, the outlook for the rest of the winter, the number of potholes repaired, how potholes are identified for repair, the DoT’s road resurfacing plans in the near-future, how many crews are working, why this particular pothole was chosen for the press conference location, whether the mayor is enjoying “this aspect” of his job and an assessment by the road crew of how the mayor performed. Off-topic questions included the mayor’s proposed budget and the potential cost of open labor contracts, a timeline for settling the open labor contracts, the Build it Back program, the administration’s “comprehensive review” of the city’s Sandy recovery efforts, release of Bishop Findlayter’s arrest report, the mayor’s September promise to visit a carriage horse stable before acting on his pledge to ban carriage horses and the administration’s community development block grant application. Here is the mayor’s full press Q&A:

Sandy Recovery:

The mayor was asked three separate questions concerning the city’s ongoing efforts at recovery from Hurricane Sandy. The first focused on the Build it Back program, which is widely criticized for a slow, even glacial, pace of funding repairs. The second (from yours truly) asked about the “comprehensive review” briefly mentioned by the mayor in his State of the City address on February 10th. The third asked about the city’s community development block grant application, due to be submitted to the federal government by March 18th. Here is how the mayor responded:

Update – Pothole Repair:

Mayor de Blasio and DoT Commissioner Trottenberg filled a real live pothole; here’s how it went.